Otelio Ote, former Timor Post editorial director and now government print media adviser,
is upbeat over the Timorese media future. Photo: David Rbie/PMC
TIMOR-LESTE'S national print adviser has one piece of
advice for critics of the controversial planned media law - read the draft document
first before jumping to conclusions.
Otelio Ote, who until his state media office appointment in mid-July was editorial director of the Timor Post daily newspaper and is
still a part-time editor there, is optimistic about the proposed legislation.
"The law isn't about control of the media, it's
about shoring up the status of the media and making journalism more
professional in this country," he says.
Ote revealed that the government plans to set up a
national news agency in Timor-Leste next year, the first time the country has
had one since Australian freelance journalist Roger East was commissioned to do the job
immediately before the Indonesian invasion in December 1975.
East was murdered by invading soldiers after
investigating the deaths of the so-called Balibo Five in a human rights
atrocity - five Australians, Britons and a New Zealander who were reporting for
two televison channels from the border town on pre-invasion Indonesian
incursions.
THE HYPOCRISY reeks. While Australia, NZ and the media went through the usual bleating about Fiji human rights violations, they remained silent about the ongoing struggle to gain justice for those Timorese who have suffered horrendous human rights violations for more than four decades. Alleged human rights violations in Fiji are a soft target - the tough target, the top Indonesian military commanders who have blood on their hands for their colonial adventure in East Timor, remain free with inpunity. Timor-Leste's Truth Commission appeals for an international tribunal and a "commission for disappeared persons" still remain an unlikely dream.
In spite of this climate of international indifference and a "bury the hatchet" approach of appeasement by the current Timorese leadership towards Jakarta, the release from jail of the notorious militia leader Martenus Bere has shocked many human rights advocacy groups. Calls have been made for the indictment of those in government who were responsible for his extra-judicial release and the buck apparently rests with the Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão.
The recent release of the Bob Connolly feature film Balibo, about the murders of the Balibo Five - Australian-based newsmen murdered in the border township of Balibo in 1975, has fuelled calls for justice. A sixth journalist, Paul East, who went to East Timor to investigate the killings was himself executed by the invading Indonesian forces.
According to ETAN, in February 2003, the United Nations-backed Serious Crimes Unit indicted Martenus Bere and other members of the pro-Jakarta Laksaur militia for crimes against humanity including murder, rape, torture, enforced disappearances and more. Bere and other Laksaur militia and Indonesian military officers were accused of carrying out the Suai Church massacre on 6 September 1999, killing more than 30 unarmed people and three priests, including Indonesian priest Dewanto.
Bere was arrested in Suai early last month by the Timor-Leste National Police. Until then, he and more than 300 others indicted by the Serious Crimes Unit had lived openly in Indonesia, which has refused to cooperate with any international justice mechanism related to crimes committed in Timor-Leste. An East Timorese judge ordered him held for trial.
However, on August 30 he was released into the custody of the Indonesian ambassador on orders of Gusmão and Justice Minister Lucia Lobato. Bere is believed to still be in Timor-Leste. This is a joint protest statement issued by 11 Indonesian and Timorese human rights groups:
CALL FOR JUSTICE ON EAST TIMOR PAST MASS ATROCITIES
Joint Statement on the Release of Martenus Bere – Indicted for Crimes Against Humanity in Timor-Leste
For the past ten years the disinterest of the international community and active efforts by Indonesia have blocked efforts to end impunity for serious crimes committed during the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste. Ignoring the pleas of the East Timorese people, the Timor-Leste leadership continues to dismiss their calls for justice and an end to impunity.
We were deeply distressed by the 30 August speech of Timor-Leste President José Ramos-Horta and the actions of the governments of Indonesia and Timor-Leste which led to the release of indicted militia leader Martenus Bere. His extra-judicial release violated international law and treaties and undermined the rule of law and the Constitution of Timor-Leste.
We firmly disagree with President Ramos-Horta that the pursuit of justice is “simplistic".
We disagree that it is necessary to try everyone who committed crimes between 1974 and 1999, or to try no one. Those who gave the orders must be held accountable before a credible court. We believe the pursuit of justice and accountability for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the occupation of Timor-Leste will build democracy and respect for the rule of law in both countries and reconciliation between the two nations. Until there is justice, neither country can “put the past behind.” We add our voices to those in Timor-Leste and elsewhere calling for an International Tribunal for Timor-Leste.
We recognise that victims of human rights violations in Indonesia and Timor-Leste have much in common, including a desire to see those most responsible for their suffering brought to justice. We fully support the conclusions of the recently completed victims’ congress in Dili and will work on joint campaigns against impunity and for reparations.
We urge the international community and Indonesia to respond to the recommendations included in the CAVR report released by Timor-Leste’s truth commission, including its call for an international tribunal.
Countries should not arm or train the Indonesian military until it has been shown to be accountable for past human rights crimes.
We urge the Indonesian government to fully implement the recommendations directed to it by the CAVR, starting with formally acknowledging receipt of its report and discussing it in the Indonesian Parliament.
The Indonesian government together with Timor-Leste should fully implement the recommendations of the Commission on Truth and Friendship (CTF), especially the one calling for a Commission for Disappeared Persons to gather data and provide information.
Jakarta, 12 September 2009
Asmara Nababan – Koordinator, KKPK (Indonesian Working Group on Truth Recovery) Galuh Wandita – ICTJ JKT (International Center for Transitional Justice) Rafendi Djamin – HRWG (Human Rights Working Group) Usman Hamid – KontraS (Commission on the Disappeared and Victims of Violence) Miryam Nainggolan – KKPK Garda Sembiring – PEC (People Empowerment Consortium) Mugiyanto – Ikohi (Indonesian Association of the Families of the Disappeared) Hilmar Farid – JKB (Network of Cultural Works) Rusdi Marpaung – Imparsial (Indonesian Human Rights Monitor) Dedi Ali Ahmad – PBHI Nasional (Indonesian Legal and Human Rights Association) John M. Miller – ETAN (East Timor and Indonesia Action Network)
During President Ramos-Horta’s speech at the commemoration of the August 30 referendum, he said: “Let’s put the past behind. There will be no International Tribunal.” Inexplicably, he continued that “I beg to disagree with their simplistic assertion that the absence of prosecutorial justice fosters impunity and violence.” He also said “We will not replace the Indonesians in their own fight for democracy, human rights and justice.”
Last week, President Horta took the unusual step of awarding a Timorese journalist and his newspaper a medal for "courageous journalism" following a recent similar award to Australia's SBS for its contribution to diversity broadcasting. Horta decorated José Belo and Tempo Semanal, which ironically have been a thorn in the side of the current Timorese government with persistent allegations of corruption. They are currently being sued for defamation by the Justice Minister.
Café Pacific congratulates José Belo and his team for their contribution to a free press in Timor-Leste.
BALIBO, the film about truth and justice in East Timor and the brutal murders of six journalists while the fledgling nation struggled for its independence against the Indonesian invasion in 1975, is certain to cause shock waves in the region.
The film, being screened at the Melbourne film festival next month and due for general release in August, is an indictment of successive Australian governments.
And New Zealand authorities are also bound to be embarrassed by the chilling story of political betrayal and death.
Five journalists – including a New Zealander – working for Australian television networks – were killed in the border village of Balibo on 16 October 1975 and a sixth in the capital of Dili eight weeks later.
Indonesian special forces led by Yunus Yosfiah murdered Australian-based journalists Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart, Gary Cunningham (a New Zealander), Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie, who were reporting on Indonesia’s then covert invasion of East Timor.
Roger East, who went to investigate their deaths, was also murdered in Dili during the formal invasion, on December 7 – he was among 86 people summarily executed on the Dili wharf and their bodies dumped in the sea.
The military commanders involved in these atrocities today lead lives of impunity in spite of their crimes.
Director Robert Connolly unveiled some of the footage in a preview of his film at the recent 58th World Press Institute conference in Helsinki, Finland, earlier this month.
Balibo tells the story of the six murders through the eyes of war correspondent Roger East (played by Anthony LaPaglia) and a young José Ramos-Horta (now President of Timor-Leste).
In 2007, New South Wales deputy coroner Dorelle Pinch ruled that the Balibo five were deliberately killed by Indonesian troops to cover up the invasion of East Timor.
Associate Professor Damien Kingsbury, of Geelong’s Deakin University Centre for Citizenship, Development and Human Rights, writes:
As a movie, Balibo is confronting, heart-wrenching, and raises a sense of legitimate anger. These responses parallel how many Australians responded to events in East Timor in 1999, when by their numbers they compelled the Australian government to finally intervene.
Such responses also parallel how many Australians felt in 1975, and in the years since. If the concerns of 1975 faded, it was because our governments so effectively covered-up the truth of these events, and the horrors subsequently perpetrated upon the people of East Timor. The Indonesian government led that complicity, culminating in the carnage and its ignominious departure from East Timor in 1999. But our own governments, under Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating and Howard, participated in that complicity.
The movie Balibo also captures the reality that East Timor’s people were just ordinary human beings caught in terrible circumstances. The scenes, too, in the forests and of streams, over the steep mountains and of the sea and sky are so accurate because they are East Timor. Dili’s emblematic Hotel Turismo had, and retains, the atmosphere of a Graeme Greene novel.
Balibo’s critics will attack it not for its art, but citing that Australia’s relationship with Indonesia is, these days, positive, and East Timor is now an independent state with its own aspirations and struggles. What they are unlikely to admit it that the problems that East Timor has endured since independence have been rooted in its brutal past.
PETER CRONAU, one of the co-founders of Pacific Media Watch, has just done an interview with PMW's Josephine Latu about the state of media freedom in the Pacific 12 years on since the group's campaign to free Kalafi Moala from jail. (Moala was imprisoned unconstitutionally for contempt of Parliament). Cronau is busy writing a new book about East Timor and the case of the Balibo Five, the shameful murder by the Indonesians of five Australian-based journalists (including a Kiwi) back in 1975. He and his ABC Four Corners team won a Gold Walkley in 2006 for their programme Stoking the Fires about the bitter post-independence political rivalries in East Timor. This book is certain to rock the media and political establishments in Canberra with its revelations. While there have been a few hard-to-find improvements in media freedom over the past decade or so, Cronau warns newshounds not to sit on any Pacific laurels. Vigilance is the name of the game. Peter - at the time director of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ) - and Café Pacific's David Robie - then head of journalism at the University of Papua New Guinea - founded PMW at a particularly rocky time 21 years after the Balibo massacre:
Persistence by some journalists ... saw them reporting the Indonesian preparations for the invasion - and six media workers [the sixth, Roger East, was executed later on Dili wharf] paid with their lives for reporting this truth.
I guess the lesson to take from the book is that like all freedoms, freedom of the press is lost unless guarded vigilantly. That's the essential reason we set up Pacific Media Watch in the first place.
